A new virus is spreading through Facebook. The Koobface — a worm designed specifically to spread over social-networking sites — is blasting spam messages out to Facebook members. The motive is to enable hijacking and click fraud.
The messages offer subject lines like “You look so funny on our new video” and offer a link to a video site that pretends to have a movie clip. When the user follows the link, they are redirected to one of many different compromised hosts, according to McAfee Avert Labs. Finally, the user is urged to download or open a file named flash_player.exe. That file is a new Koobface variant.
“Facebook is already aware of this threat and is purging the spammed links from their system. But with dozens of Koobface variants known to exist, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better,” Craig Schmugar of McAfee Avert Labs wrote on the company’s blog. “It’s important to note that spammed links leading to Koobface are likely to come from infected friends, reminiscent of early mass-mailing worms.”
A Dangerous Threat
Is this a serious threat? It’s serious in the sense that Facebook users are receiving spam messages on their wall or Facebook inbox pointing to malicious content, said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos.
“A key factor which helps social-networking spam and malware succeed is that people are more prepared to click on a link or message if they believe it is from someone they know,” Cluley said. “The average person is used to receiving unsolicited e-mails in their regular inbox, but believe messages have more credence when they arrive via Facebook. The message is clear — people need to beware.”
Cluley said the fact that so much regular e-mail is spam has naturally made people more questioning of messages received via that…